I've been thinking about this lately as I've seen a few stories about poaching recently. Last week it was about turtles in Mozambique (exotic pets in Thailand). Last year it was small dolphins in the Sea of Cortez (a casualty of the market for fish bladders as an aphrodisiac in China). There are also pangolins in Indonesia (Asian delicacy).

Try as we might to stop the poaching I really feel like the only way to solve this problem is by killing the demand. Honestly I don't know how to do this. It just seems like efforts to quell the supply side will be ultimately futile for animals that by definition wander in uninhabited areas and are open to poaching.

What's sad about this is how much of it is completely pointless (Chinese "medicine") and how when certain species get endangered, it just drives up the value and makes them even more of a status symbol.

Sometimes it feels like we're heading towards (or are already in) a mass extinction event where we'll be the likely biggest victims.